Saturday, March 31, 2007

I think that much of the genius of GKC, CS Lewis, and Tolkein consists in their ability to draw in people from many different, seemingly contradictory backgrounds. It has been said before, especially by Dr. Peter Kreeft, that the New Evangelization seems best accomplished through literature and the imagination. The classic themes of Christianity are seen as cliches of an outmoded system when presented academically, but within the context of high fantasy they stir the spirit.

I thought the Dean Koontz/GKC connection earlier in the week was interesting. I have not read much Dean Koonz. I started a book once back in Iraq but didnt get to finish it. Koontz has stuck in my mind for some time since I heard a radio interview with him on Art Bell one night. Although obviously a bit new agey, I was impressed with how Koontz presented himself. Another FYI, Prof. Anthony Rizzi, EWTN personality and Catholic Author, also did an Art Bell interview a couple years ago and left Art truly amazed --- with his discussion of simple, classical metaphysics. For those of you who dont know Art Bell is THE original late night radio host --mostly into hauntings and UFOs.

Art's amazement reminded me of one of my childhood heroes from the 80s, Mr. T. His trademark line, "I pity the fool," is something I am starting to identify with. I think that "Orthodoxy", Classical Philosophy, the Great Books, and all of the things associated are truly the most wonderful inheritance of the human mind. The great thoughts of the great thinkers are exciting, invogorating, and liberating in the best sense of the word. I recently ran into an old college professor of mine, whose curriculum I ended up having to deprogram out of myself, cant say much more about the poor fellow than " I pity the fool" for allowing relativism and the peer pressure of the academic community cloud his search for the good, the true, and the beautiful. I think our language is insufficient when it says I have to put commas between that minor trinity.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Spring is creeping in to Western New York - with occasional interruptions of sub-freezing temperatures and snow to remind us that winter is not ready to give up.

The bulbs my wife planted last year are sprouting.

The robins are back in our backyard feeders, along with hoards of other hungry birds gathering at our bird feeders.

I smell the skunks when I take my dog for her morning walk.

I remembered a Chesterton piece in A Miscellany of Men that dealt with spring: “The Priest of Spring”.

He notes the many myths about this season (including a few modern ones), but, naturally turns to the Easter story.

The whole essay is worth reading (well, it is by Chesterton, after all), so I recommend that you dig it out (it’s also on line).

It concludes with:

About all these myths my own position is utterly and even sadly simple.I say you cannot really understand any myths till you have foundthat one of them is not a myth. Turnip ghosts mean nothing if thereare no real ghosts. Forged bank-notes mean nothing if there are no realbank-notes. Heathen gods mean nothing, and must always mean nothing,to those of us that deny the Christian God. When once a godis admitted, even a false god, the Cosmos begins to know its place:which is the second place. When once it is the real God the Cosmosfalls down before Him, offering flowers in spring as flames in winter."My love is like a red, red rose" does not mean that the poetis praising roses under the allegory of a young lady."My love is an arbutus" does not mean that the author was a botanistso pleased with a particular arbutus tree that he said he loved it."Who art the moon and regent of my sky" does not mean that Julietinvented Romeo to account for the roundness of the moon."Christ is the Sun of Easter" does not mean that the worshipper ispraising the sun under the emblem of Christ. Goddess or god can clothethemselves with the spring or summer; but the body is more than raiment.Religion takes almost disdainfully the dress of Nature; and indeedChristianity has done as well with the snows of Christmas as withthe snow-drops of spring. And when I look across the sun-struck fields,I know in my inmost bones that my joy is not solely in the spring,for spring alone, being always returning, would be always sad.There is somebody or something walking there, to be crowned with flowers:and my pleasure is in some promise yet possible and in the resurrectionof the dead.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

When my issue of Gilbert comes I begin reading it on my walk home from the post office. I start with News With Views, because you can read those short pieces and walk at the same time. I was held (laughing) by THE DEVIL IS A GENTLEMAN, BUT APPARENTLY GOD IS NOT. It was another attempt at making a Scriptural change from God the Father into God Mother or at least a He/She – inclusive language type crap. But the Devil is never included in the radical feminist lexicon as female and it’s about time she was. So I wrote this, (and managed to get a GKC quote in it to boot)…-----------------------------------When the Devil sleepsdoes she have nightmares?Nightmaresof her doing a kindness,getting caught in the light,or are they like ourstangible images of guilt?Is it when she tosses and turnsover the future of her childrenthat things happen?A man notices thathis newspaper girl’s titsare bigger than his wife’s:he carries a gun to work.A thousand childrenare born withholes in their hearts.Are her nightmares thather only real failurewas with Jonah, Peterand so many of those otherfoolish heroes.

Her only real successis that “the Christian ideal hasnot been tried and found wanting;it has been found difficultand left untried.”

Maybe she is aninsomniacafraid to sleepknowing that iswhen the other wins.A longing for equal competition?

When awakedoes she take pride in her work?Is she simply fighting forequal billing?Her nameabove the title?

Saturday, March 24, 2007

I have been thinking a lot lately as to what went wrong and when. Just how did this age become know as the Post Christian Society? Some call the Roe decision ground zero - but who built that bomb, who flew the plane and who pulled the bomb bay doors open? It was the baby boomers. That is my generation. Sex drugs and rock and roll, baby. I was lied to and I believed the lie. The reasons are simple. Our parents grew out of a very rough time of the Depression then WW2 and they did not want their kids to suffer in any way. We became the focus of their entire attention we asked for something we got it, we felt bad they held us, and they became the servants we were the masters. The world got turned upside-down. We were placed center stage. The spot light is very warm and everyone is applauding. It is a tough spot to give up so we fight to stay there, fight to stay children and push everything else out from having our own children to God. They wanted the best for us they gave us everything but the lessons on how to be an adult. We remain children whining and spewing forth me first! Me first! Many do not know how to be adults. One of the top reasons I love Chesterton is that he is an adult who talks to us like we are adults.Barbara Nicolosi, explains the problem very well. Her suggestion for the “cure” is very simple and direct. A perfect sentiment for lent (a season of reconciliation) where she says: “It could be a big moment of grace for the Boomers in the Church to own up, take responsibility and apologize.”I agree. I apologize.

Friday, March 23, 2007

......to mention CS Lewis on a Chesterton blog? I used to think that quoting Lewis to Dale Ahlquist was either a venial sin, fighting words, or something similar -- I learned in old Communist Yugoslavia you could be imprisoned for "Verbal Dereliction," maybe that applies.

Anyway, I was moving some books around and I found my old copy of The Abolition of Man. I hadnt read this in years, but I class it in the same circle of works as Orthodoxy and the Everlasting Man, essentially the manifesto of the faith of our fathers for the modern age.

In his chapter, "Men Without Chests," Lewis condemns certain trends in modern eduation, beginning with an example from a schoolbook of his age. He builds to the crescendo,

"....the difference between the old and the new ecuation will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely 'conditions'. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds- making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation - men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda."

Propagation vs. propaganda ......very good summation

Chesterton obviously is similar here in his theme. GKC is more often a defender of the good things, rather than a critic of the bad. The language of indignation can be overused, but Lewis' expertise in its use actually shines off the page in Abolition.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

It had been a long, hard, oppressive winter. The likes of which had not been felt for a generation. In the neighborhood, where Steve lived, there was one death and twelve new lives begun each blamed on the confinement of that winter. Snow mobile ‘gangs’ rumbled through at all hours of the day on the streets and through unfenced yards as if the snow united all into a mile square playground. Schools and businesses closed for days at a time. It was the kind of winter that made grandparent’s say ‘this used to happen all the time when I was young.’ Utilities bills had soared to the point where many would be paying on them through August. The only color that had pierced the white and gray landscape was that of the snow suits worn by the children. The blue, red, orange, teal and purple of the marshmallow shaped people that parents forced outside to relive their entertainment duties. Their cartoon voices were held close to the ground by the increased gravity of coldness like a half remembered song being hummed by an old man. These were the occasional high notes and sweet cords played in the otherwise grim score that droned through the lives of the town.

When the first Robins were spotted there was still a foot of snow on the ground. The snows began the day after Thanksgiving and continued through the first week of March stopping on occasion as if only to catch it’s breath. Few trusted the promise of spring; it was like watching a middle aged man trying to get back in shape, so he could date again. The start was fitful, painful, almost humorous, but it was determined. It would not be stopped. The question was if it would get in top shape before summer or just shed a few pounds.

Steve let out a long stuttering breath as he stood in his yard, now so many square feet of mud and slush. Stubborn snow still clung to the edges of the dive way, more black than white. He did not realize the unrelenting pounding the winter had inflicted on him until this unique day when the temperature toped 65 degrees. He could breathe again without being slapped. His winter beard could be shaved. His quilt lined wool pants and lucky scarf could be put away. A breeze came up and he instinctively flinched but relaxed and smiled when he felt its warmth.‘The breath of God’ his mother used to call the first wind of spring. A car drove by and he heard the sound of the manhole cover, finally unfrozen, clang back and forth. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a hint of green. The woodpecker, on his annual visit, hammered out a message of love.

Although there were still many with frozen hearts Stephen stepped upon on the exhausted remnants of his wood pile and falling on his knees he cried out in a loud voice officially calling an end to winter, and let the music of the cheering throngs, fill him with their undying gratitude.

As Mr. James shows in this essay, a real intellectual is secure enough not to be worried about the height of his brow. Mr. James's principled eclecticism comes out in an essay on G.K. Chesterton, which, true to form, is really an essay about high and pop culture, provoked by Chesterton's definition of the critic's role: "To set a measure to praise and blame, and to support the classics against the fashions."(I'm scheduled for minor surgery tomorrow, so I'm posting this early and changing the time stamp. Hope nobody freaks out and thinks all of Tuesday suddenly slipped away.)

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Volume 10 Number 4 (Issue 77) has arrived. I haven't had much chance to read it, but I've glanced through it and read Dailey's Tremendous Trifles. It looks like a pretty good issue. For now, a few book notices:

1. The back cover has an advertisement for new book about GKC: Thinking Backward, Looking Forward, by Stephen R. L. Clark (too many names there). Anyone hear any good reviews?

2. S.P. Dailey says one of the best GKC anthologies is back in print. As I Was Saying: A Chesterton Reader. It might be a good introduction to those who want to read Chesterton but don't, you know, want to read read Chesterton.

3. Barnes & Noble Publishing recently released GKC's The Ball and the Cross, the latest volume in their Library of Essential Reading series. Dailey says it's a handsome paperback. Only $7.95. Interesting but not shocking: The link in this paragraph is NOT to the Barnes & Noble edition. The BN edition apparently is not available at Amazon. The rivalry continues!

Friday, March 16, 2007

The events of the last week have gotten me thinking about the state of "thought" in the US. I really think that from the University level on down, we are losing perspective on many things. The particular symptom I see is how politicized EVERYTHING is. This is obviously bad for a multitude of reasons, but it has the negative effect of diluting arguement, thought, and sophisticated intellectual life.

I am a Chestertonian, a Conservative, a Catholic, and (for now, still) a Republican. All of these "spheres" I inhabit have some common principles, lumenaries, and some same vocabulary, but they are ultimately not a Totalitarian monolithic jihadist platform.

Platforms, you see, are the extent to which any issues are discussed now. Abp. Sheen once said something along the lines that there are probably only a hundred people who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who despise what they think the Church is. There is a specific means by which the Church discovers and proclaims her doctrine. Although St. Augustine might be a Platonist, St. Thomas an Aristotelian, and John Paul II a Phenomenologist, they are all articulating the same ends through different means. This type of exigesis is far more sophisticated than the ridiculous mode of thought represented by "Update the Church's teaching to be relevant for our times." Im all for that if it means growing out of the failed 1960s ideas which have plagued us.

Platforms exist in the political world to create coalitions and demographics capable of winning elections. Period. The Democratic Party must hold union members, educators, environmentalists, social reformers, and radical secularists together in order to build a voting bloc. This necessity is one of association, not of coherent message or vision. The thoughts and values of working union families are far different than those of the George Soros circle of social reformers. They come together to create numbers. Likewise, the Republicans hold together some different bedfellows as well. What is lost in all of this is that politics, positions on issues, and governing are the END products of a process, not the process itself.

It is now sufficient to say, "I have a right to X." No other arguement is necessary. Even the ancient Greeks knew enough to ask, "What are rights? Are they absolute? Are some absolute? Do they apply to the individual or to the family or polis? What are rights derived from? Do some rights exist apart from the state or from the human condition itself?"

As a Republican, I could see making more gestures towards Mexico on the immigration issue, since some Hispanics could be wooed for the party's family values vote. As a Conservative, I could think that current foreign policy is seen as imperialistic, expensive, and very un conservative. As a Chestertonian, I would like to see taxes and business laws opened up in order to make it easier to live as a freehold distributist. As a Catholic, I have a base of Scripture, Patristics, and 2000 of theology and lived history to derive truths from.

In the public arena, none of these layers matter, because they cannot be reduced to a soundbite.

Two things came together and got me thinking about this. 1. The current news items about homosexuality, whether it is immoral - one story, and if it is genetic or biologically based it cannot be wrong by "natural law." - second story. Anybody with a computer and google could find out the correct definitions of these terms in milliseconds, but because most people in the press and education are even aware that these terms might actually mean something and have a robust defense, they are left undefined in the morass.

I used to think it cliche how Dale Ahlquist would always describe Chesterton as "A complete thinker." I am beginning to see this as perhaps his greatest trait. In most circles, "complete thinker" would connotate closed mindedness, and dull, rote blandness. I think it is because GKC is a complete thinker that he was able to be an artist, a novelist, an apologist, a cigar lover, and a boon companion to some of the greatest minds of his age.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

There's a story in the news about a man who claims a unicorn was driving his truck and crashed it.

Phillip C. Holliday Jr. of Billings Montana initially said a unicorn drove his truck into a light post on March 7. Nobody was injured.

He later pleaded not guilty to felony charges of criminal endangerment and drunken driving. Holliday has five drunken-driving convictions.

A unicorn, eh? For some reason it made me think of Chesterton. Not because of the drinking, though Chesterton certainly enjoyed adult beverages, but just the sheer whimsy of citing a unicorn under the circumstances.

Certainly a better excuse than Pink Elephants.

Then I remembered a poem of Chesterton’s I stumbled across called, “An Apology for a Letter Unposted (For Clare Nicholl)”

The poem begins:

He thought he saw the Unicorn, the horned and holy horse,He looked again and saw it was a Subject for Remorse,He rushed for what he meant to post – And didn’t post, of course.

The poem goes on for a couple of verses, then ends:

He thought he saw the Unicorn, crowned of the Silver Spear,He wondered if it was a Stag, and saw it was a Dear –And so he drowned himself – some say in Water – some in Beer.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I hear the current issue of Culture Wars has a "hatchet job" on Chesterton. I went to the site but couldn't find anything, except this nice review by James Bruen (a good man, based on my electronic corresondence with him) of Ahlquist's two GKC books.

"Like the Lord of the Rings films, J. R. R. Tolkien’s canon is taking its time in drawing to a close. [On April 17th], the late author’s Children of Húrin goes on sale. Set long before Lord and imbued with a more tragic tone, the tale was pieced together by Tolkien’s son, Christopher, from notes and fragments."

Monday, March 12, 2007

Im sorry about missing my normal Friday, had some business and family committments that ate up the whole weekend.

Last week, I saw a ray of (mostly) hope from the normally superficial History Channel. The network was doing a week special on barbarian leaders, and I caught their feature on King Alfred the Great, of Ballad of the White Horse fame.

There was a slight bit of acrimony towards Alfred's Christianity, but tame by HC standards. They provided a fairly deep study of the character of Alfred -- The only British monarch to hold the title 'The Great.' Alfred was actually a somewhat slight, scholarly individual who had to make himself into a warrior in order to be a leader of his people. After Ethandune, he spread learning amongst the nobility, often giving gifts of books he personally translated. Alfred also built up a great deal of infrastructure which would not be equalled until the Norman conquest.

Just wanted to keep the theme of manly men going, plus give credit where due when the History Channel does something well.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

In Eric’s post on manly men he did bring up the question (in my mind) of “what does it mean to be a man?” Some situations are easy to decide, like:Shall we watch The Magnificent Seven or Wuthering Heights?Should I teach my son how to change a tire or how to call triple A?If your daughter brings home a new boy friend should you tell him, (A), in the service I learned 12 ways to break a man’s back and I still remember seven of them or (B), hey I remember what it feels like to be young here are some fresh rubbers. I’m sure yours are old.

But what about the tough calls:A guy driving along talking on his cell phone ordering a pizza takes a corner to fast and hits your child, crippling her for life. Do you (A) beat the living crap out of him and sue him down to homelessness or (B) forgive him and let the courts take care of the punishment?Your wife has a one time affair and winds up pregnant with his child. Do you (A) beat the living crap out of him and send your wife packing or (B) forgive them both and raise the child as your own?If these were plot lines in a Duke Wayne movie we know that the answer to the above would be (A). And the audience would cheer him all along the way.

But is this A REAL MAN?

Or do real men even talk about such things? Hokay, I know one man who did but they nailed him to a tree.

What would Chesterton and his friends say since none of them had a manly profession? I mean they were all writers and philosophers and that kind of namby-pamby little girl stuff.

No, not the great one himself. (I think he’s scheduled to be in Chicago this Saturday, though!)

The paper carried a George Will column Monday. The column dealt with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

He talked about the tinge to her campaign that she is "next in line" for the presidency.

He wrote: "But such an aura annoys voters by telling them that they really have no choice. And that can provoke them to play the game G. K. Chesterton called `Cheat the Prophet.'"

Okay. He got me. I’d never heard of this "game," so I went off searching for it.

It turns out the game is mentioned in The Napoleon of Notting Hill in the opening section called "Introductory Remarks of the Art of Prophecy."

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet". The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. ...Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal the painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the twentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty years after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now.

I wonder who history with name as false prophets from our time.

I can think of a few.

But rather than predicting who will make that list - and risk being a "false prophet" - I'll end by quoting more contemprary prophets who echoed GKC: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

When you were a teenager, did you have a non-Bible ‘bible’ — a book you read and re-read, carried around with you, swore held the key to the universe if only more people would listen to what its author said?

Maybe your dog-eared oracle was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Siddhartha or Catcher in the Rye or On the Road. Those books, perennial coming-of-age favorites to this day, were a bit too weighty for me.

My teenage bible was a book of pictures and anecdotes called The Manly Handbook. Who made America? “Real men,” it said, “like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Teddy Roosevelt and Duke Wayne.”

Sunday, March 04, 2007

My crew left for the weekend leaving me to continue the rehab of our kitchen. Letting the first coat of drywall mud dry I moved on to my computer area in great hopes of cleaning that up too. As I was removing and filing a pile of papers I uncovered Chesterton’s book on Saints Aquinas and Francis, (I was wondering where that went). Sitting down to “thumb through it” again it thus bring an end to my plans for further kitchen construction.

I moved to some of Aquinas’s writings and came across some quotes of his that made me understand why Gilbert loved him so:

“Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.”

“It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.”

And then this:“Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”

Knowing that Aquinas brought the ancient philosophers to bear in forming his theology I moved on to Plato and his buddies and I saw how Aquinas could “easily” do this.In his "Republic," Plato has Socrates describe the effect on the soul of grace and gracelessness in the material culture: "Our aim is to prevent our Guards being reared among images of vice — as it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs where, cropping and grazing in abundance every day, they little by little and all unawares build up one huge accumulation of evil in their soul. Rather, we must seek out craftsmen with a talent for capturing what is lovely and graceful, so that our young, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, will receive benefit from everything about them. Like a breeze bringing health from wholesome places, the impact of works of beauty on eye or ear will imperceptibly from childhood on, guide them to likeness, to friendship, to concord with the beauty of reason."

Remembering a past post of mine on the power of television to teach, Plato is telling us that you won't find such "craftsmen" on television today.Turn it off - read a book or rehab your kitchen.

These are just a couple lists I found on Amazon which feature GKC not as a great Catholic writer, but as a representative of the Great Books of Western Civilization. This is a category which everyone understands the generals, but argues about the particulars. I was looking on Amazon for another reason and just stumbled into this. It does seem that outside of the homeschooled even the idea of Great Books has been totally lost. This isnt snobbery or anything, but how miserable it would be to go through life without having these wonderful thoughts and ideas in your head.